Accelerated Diffusion MRI for Diagnosis of Hungtington Disease

Launched by WANG . JIUN-JIE · Jun 19, 2013

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging has emerged as a sensitive, noninvasive tool for assessing the abnormalities in the central nervous system. Applications have been reported in many neurological disorders. However, because of the motion-sensitizing diffusion gradient and the prolonged diffusion encoding time, clinical practice could be difficult especially in patients with motor disorders such as Huntington Disease. Currently there existed no useful biomarker which could reflect either the disease progression or severity of Huntington disease. There is a growing interest in imaging Hunti...

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Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Huntington Disease
• • 1. All participants should be aged between 20 and 70 year old.
• • 2. Established diagnosis by a neurological examination and genetic assessment of CAG expansion in the Htt gene.
• • 3. Able to understand and provide signed informed consent.
• * Healthy Controls:
• • 1. Able to understand and provide signed informed consent
• • 2. age range and gender matched with Patients with HD
• • 3. without significant neuropsychiatric disorders
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Human Subjects The participants will be divided into 2 groups: Huntington Disease Group and Healthy Control Group. All participants should be aged between 20 and 70 year old, right handed and gender balanced.
• • Exclusion CriteriaThe following exclusion criteria apply to both groups.
• • 1. Cardiac pacemaker implantation.
• • 2. Implantation of intracranial metal device.
• • 3. Significant major systemic disease, such as renal failure, heart failure, stroke, AMI/unstable angina, poor controlled diabetes mellitus, poor controlled hypertension.
• • 4. Pregnant or breast feeding women.
• • 5. Severe dementia.
• • 6. Any documented abnormality of brain caused by etiologies other than HD by MRI and 18FDG PET studies, which might contribute to the cognitive function, such as hydrocephalus or encephalomalacia, will be excluded. Mild cortical atrophy will be allowed.
• • 7. History of intracranial operation, including thalamotomy, pallidotomy, and/or deep brain stimulation.
• • 8. Significant physical disorder or neuropsychiatric disorder.